Earthly and Cosmic Man

Schmidt Number: S-2587

On-line since: 7th January, 2000

V

THE IDEA OF REINCARNATION AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO WESTERN CULTURE

THE HERALDING OF CHRISTIANITY

WHEN we think of all the achievements of the spiritual life, all the
insight into the spiritual world and conceptions of the universe which
have come to birth during the course of human existence, we have, on
the one side, a picture of great and significant progress in the
evolution of mankind on the Earth; and when this progress is
investigated by Spiritual Science, it becomes clear that the human
being  the single individual  participates in this general
progress in that he passes through the successive epochs and
time-periods in reincarnations; in this way he is able not only to
preserve everything that his soul has assimilated in ancient and more
recent times, but also to play a real part in the whole evolutionary
process. Thus when a man has lived as a being of body and soul in one
epoch of culture, he does not vanish from the field of evolution, but
remains, in order again to take part in what Earth-existence has later
become. In a general sense, progress of this kind is certainly to be
perceived. But many of our studies will remind us that this progress
is not so straightforward a matter that it could be said to begin with
the simple and the primitive, rising from thence into the heights; on
the contrary, it will be found that progress  indeed the whole
process of evolution  is full of complication.

The First Post-Atlantean epoch of culture after the great Atlantean
catastrophe was that of ancient India. Its sublimity and power of
vision into the spiritual worlds have never since been equalled, nor
will its heights be reattained until the Seventh Post-Atlantean epoch
 after the Fifth and Sixth have run their course. Thus in
certain forms of spiritual life there is a decline, followed again, in
due course, by an ascent. Graeco-Latin culture, for instance, was a
most noble expression of the inner union existing between the Greeks
and their Art, and of the wise ordering of civic life in Greece and
Rome, whereby a certain harmony in the conditions of life on the
physical plane was created. But an utterance of a great Greek is also
indicative of the character of this epoch: Better it is to be a
beggar in the Upper World than a king in the realm of the
Shades. This indicates that in an epoch of golden prime on the
physical plane, men had only very limited consciousness of the
significance of the spiritual world lying behind and beyond the
physical plane. Since that time the intensity of the union between the
human being and life on the physical plane has waned, together with
the noblest fruits of that union; on the other hand, however, mankind
begins, gradually and perceptibly to ascend once again to the
spiritual worlds. This will serve as an illustration of the
complicated course taken by human evolution. When emphasis is laid on
the blessings and high lights of one particular epoch, this most
certainly does not imply that lesser value is to be attached to other
epochs which lack certain characteristics. Although we speak again and
again of all that Christianity has brought into the world, we know
that its impulse is only beginning and that the spiritual heights
attained in the East before the coming of Christianity, have not again
been reached. All this must be remembered, because there must be no
thought or suggestion that in bringing forward the merits of one
epoch, we do less than justice to the greatness and significance of
others. In this sense I ask you to pay attention to a difference that
is neither a merit on the one side nor a failing on the other: I want
simply to describe a certain difference between pre-Christian,
Oriental culture and Christianity (not Pagan or even ancient Hebrew
culture)  a difference which becomes clear when insight into
Christianity has been deepened by Spiritual Science.

In typically Oriental conceptions of the world there is a firmly
established principle to which repeated allusions are made but to
which, up to now, Christianity has paid little heed. Oriental culture
has knowledge of the great cosmic Laws revealed today by Spiritual
Science, namely, those of the return of the human being in different
Earth-lives, and of Karma. Whereas Christianity through the centuries
has had eyes only for the life of a man between birth and death, and
its continuance in a simple heavenly life, the Oriental world
possesses definite knowledge of the return of man in repeated lives on
Earth; and the knowledge of this great manifestation of law in the
evolution of humanity constitutes much of the profound significance in
Oriental teachings. As a result of this, Oriental culture contains
teachings regarding the leaders and great heroes of human evolution
which differ fundamentally from anything taught in the West. In the
Oriental world-conception we find references to Beings of whom it is
said from the outset that they return again and again and that the
importance of their influence can be measured by their achievements in
successive Earth-lives. The very name, Gautama Buddha is
indicative, for Buddha is not a proper name like
Socrates or Raphael, but denotes a rank. The
world of thought from which Buddhism has grown speaks of many Buddhas
Buddha is a rank. Before Gautama Buddha the
royal son of King Suddhodana  became the Buddha of
whom Oriental teachings speak, he was a Bodhisattva. In
other words, the Oriental conception of the world perceives the
Individuality who passes through the different incarnations, ascending
from incarnation to incarnation and finally reaching the height at
which the rank of Buddha is attained Such an Individuality
is then no longer called by a proper name. In speaking of the
characteristics of the Buddha, Buddhism rarely refers to Prince
Siddhartha, but far more often to a rank, attained not only by
him but to which every human being can attain. And so, in pointing to
the great leaders, the East points to the Individuality who passes
through repeated Earth-lives; the greatness and significance of these
leaders are attributed to the merits they acquired through repeated
lives on Earth.

And now compare this with characteristic features of western culture.
There we are told of the greatness of a Plato, a Socrates, of a figure
like Paul; even in the Old Testament, a figure like Moses stands out
in strong relief, and, later on, Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da
Vinci among many others. The West speaks of the single personality
 not the individuality who passes through repeated
lives on Earth. Attention is directed not to the being who goes on
from birth to birth, from death to death, but to the one personality
who lived from a certain point of time to another. The East directs
its attention more to the onward progress of the Individuality from
one incarnation to another, whereas western culture has been little
concerned as to who Socrates, for example, could have been in previous
Earth-lives, or what becomes of him in later lives. It is the same
with Paul and with all the others. This is a very fundamental
difference. The matter may be summed up by saying that the whole trend
of the West hitherto has been to lay emphasis upon the importance of
the personality, of the single life of the human being. Only now, when
we are on the threshold of a great change in the spiritual life, are
we beginning  having acquired in western culture a gauge as it
were for the single personality  to discern a principle of
existence which Oriental culture accepts as a matter of course,
namely, the development of the Individuality within the single
personalities, through many lives. A perspective of the future fraught
with great significance is here opened up, of which mankind will stand
increasingly in need.

Christian thought has actually lost sight of something which the East
has always possessed and knowledge of which has now to be reacquired.
The course of evolution is such that certain outworn fragments must be
discarded and new elements added; ancient heritages must be rescued
again, but in a new form and through a new impulse. In olden times,
clairvoyance was a natural gift in humanity. It had to fade away and be
replaced by thinking based upon purely external observation and
perception; this will be enriched by the clairvoyance of the future
and will add something of untold significance to human life. The West
had to pass through a period during which mankind was split up,
as it were, into separate personalities, but now that men stand on the
threshold of a deepening of thought and experience, they will
themselves be aware of a longing to find the thread uniting the
fragments which make their appearance in the life of the human being
between birth and death. The light of understanding will thus be shed
on the forces which flow onwards through the stream of spiritual
development and human progress. Let us illustrate this by a particular
example: 

In the lecture on The Prophet Elijah in the Light of Spiritual
Science
(Note 1)
I spoke of what occult research reveals concerning this
prophet. I do not propose to go into further details now, but will
only say that in the light of occult knowledge, Elijah was one who
proclaimed with power and deep intensity that the primal, original
form of what humanity may call the Divine can be glimpsed
only in the innermost centre of man's being, in the  I .
The great prophetic message of Elijah proclaimed that everything the
outer world can teach is, at most, semblance and parable, that
realisation of the essential nature of man can only arise in the
 I. Elijah could not, in his time, proclaim the power and
significance of the single, human  I, but he proclaimed
the existence, as it were, of a Divine Ego, external to the human
being. Men must recognise this Divine Ego, must realise that it rays
into the human  I . That this Divine Ego rises up within
the human  I  and there unfolds its full power  such
is the knowledge won by Christianity. The work and mission of Elijah
are therefore a true heralding of Christianity. This can be said when
the life of Elijah and his place in the history of human evolution are
being described in the light of occult knowledge.

And then we may think of another life, the life of the personality
known as John the Baptist. From the mouth of John, humanity was to
learn what the immediate future held in store.... Change the
attitude of your souls! Do not look back to the times that are past,
when men sought to find the Divine only at the starting-point of
evolution; look, rather, into your own souls and into the deepest core
of your being and then you will know that the Kingdoms of Heaven are
near.... This, was the substance of the message of the Baptist.
In other words: the phase of development has come when, in very truth,
the  I  can find the Divine within itself. The form in
which Christianity was heralded by Elijah has changed with the flow of
time. Something altogether different is represented by John the
Baptist. But through Spiritual Science and a deepened understanding,
we realise that one and the same Being lived in the prophet Elijah and
in John the Baptist. We add to our understanding of the single life a
principle of knowledge already possessed by the East, only the East
did not lay such emphasis upon the power and force inhering in the
single personality.

Going further, we can speak of that most remarkable personality who
lived from 1483 to 1521, was born on a Good Friday and through this
very fact, indicated, as it were, his living connection with the
Mystery of Golgotha. I am referring, of course, to Raphael, the great
painter. In the western world, as is only to be expected, it is
customary to study Raphael as a figure in himself, but it will very
soon become clear to deeper insight, that what the West has to say
with regard to Raphael has many shortcomings. This figure of Raphael
presents a remarkable spectacle to those who aspire for a more
profound understanding. It is as though his genius came with him at
birth. In a manner of speaking it can be said that he let
himself be born on a Good Friday, in order to indicate his
connection with the Mystery of Golgotha. It is quite obvious that from
the very first, his life gave promise of all his subsequent greatness.
Orphaned at an early age, he was thrown out into the world, and
finally into the brilliance and splendour of Rome; there, within the
span of a short life, we see him rise step by step to heights of fame.
What is there to be said about this remarkable life? Think of the
environment into which Raphael was born  it was in the period at
the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was a time when
disputes in the world of religion were rampant and widespread, when
Christianity was scattered into countless sects over the whole Earth,
when mighty and also terrible conflicts were being waged in
Christendom. And now we turn to Raphael's paintings. It is a strange
experience! They seem to make us forget what was happening all around
in the Christian world at the time and a kind of jubilation at the
power with which Christianity has taken root in human evolution
streams out from them. Think of a picture like The School of
Athens as it is generally called. We see all those remarkable
figures, deciphered by pedants with the aid of historical guide-books,
as Socrates, Diogenes, and so forth. This, however, means nothing
whatever from the point of view of Art. But if we take the New
Testament and read the Acts of the Apostles attentively, we feel that
in this picture we have before our very eyes the whole vivid
difference between the pre-Christian views prevailing in Greece and
those of Christianity; we also find this in the picture usually,
though erroneously, known as the Disputa. The School
of Athens really depicts the scene in the New Testament when
Paul came among the Greeks, saying to them: Until this day you
have heard of many Gods; but the Divine does not express Itself in
images. You have spoken great words concerning the living Gods, but
there is something still greater: the Glory of the God Who died on the
Cross and has risen again! We feel the power of the message as
we stand before the picture called The School of Athens,
and look at the remarkable figures of the philosophers listening
attentively as Paul speaks. When the picture is actually before us,
the pedantic interpretation given to it later on  that the
central figures are Aristotle, Plato, and so forth  fades into
insignificance. We feel that Raphael was trying to depict the moment
when Paul came among the Greeks. If we study the New Testament
closely, we shall be able to identify the figure of the man with the
hand pointing forward so significantly, as a personality drawn from
the New Testament account. The New Testament, therefore, provided the
model for a personality depicted in this picture, namely, the
personality of Paul.

And so we pass from one picture to another, forgetting all the
statements that have been made about the one or the other, for a great
force streams out of them; we feel that Christianity is living on in
its mightiest power in the paintings of Raphael and that they portray
a Christianity in which there can be no strife or splitting into
sects. Recent times, however, have had little understanding of the
Christianity which pours its living influence through Raphael's
paintings. When we look at them even more closely, still another
feeling comes to us. It is as though their creator wanted to portray
the eternal youthfulness, the eternal power of victory in
Christianity. And then perhaps we ask ourselves: In what form did the
influence of these paintings live on?

Before very long, a despot like Bernini  who accomplished so
much for Art  was giving warning against imitation of Raphael;
it is even possible to say that Raphael was forgotten. In
Germany and in the west of Europe during the eighteenth century there
is a strange story to tell in regard to men's understanding of
Raphael. In the whole of Voltaire's works you will find hardly a
mention of Raphael. The name of someone else may also occur to you,
although he held a very different view later on. Goethe's experience
when he visited the Dresden Gallery for the first time, was a strange
one. When you yourselves stand before the Sistine Madonna
you will probably imagine that the picture must have filled Goethe
with enchantment, and this may well be assumed in view of all the
eulogies with which he later sang its praises. We have to remember
however, what he had heard from the officials of the Dresden Gallery
and from those who were the official custodians of the picture. He was
informed by them that the Child in the arms of the Mother, the Child
Whose eyes express a rare gift of seership, was painted with realistic
vulgarity, that it could not be from the hand of Raphael himself but
must have been painted over by someone else; and that the little
heads of Angels could not possibly have been Raphael's own work. The
coming of the Sistine Madonna to Dresden was not crowned with triumph!
But at any rate it is to Goethe's credit that after he had learnt to
appreciate Raphael, he contributed a great deal towards an
understanding of the Sistine Madonna and of Raphael himself.

Now let us think of the course, taken by evolution in the nineteenth
century, leaving aside what occurred in Catholic countries and turning
our attention to Protestant lands in which the dogma concerning the
Virgin Mary is not essential to faith. There, not only the
Sistine Madonna but all the other Madonnas of Raphael are
veritably crowned with glory! Without thinking now of the originals,
the many excellent engravings and reproductions are a proof of how men
have endeavoured to present Raphael's creations to the world in the
most perfect possible form. Few people, after all, have the
opportunity of seeing the originals themselves. Naturally, no
reproduction can convey the essence of the artistic power in a
picture; to suppose any such thing would be ignorant and barbaric. But
something else made its way into the evolution of mankind: in regions
which would have nothing to do with the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception, a form of Christianity independent of all differences of
doctrine found entrance. While men have fought for these differences
of doctrine in theories and systems, a picture of this great Mystery
 in the characters of an occult script, as it might
be said  found entry in the reproductions of Raphael's Art,
filling the Mystery with new life. Here again is a heralding of
Christianity from which great and glorious fruits will ripen in the
future. And understanding of these things will be quickened by the
experiences which have arisen in human beings at the sight of the
Sistine Madonna, the Madonna del Pesce and
other Madonnas, or from The School of Athens, the
Disputa and other paintings of Raphael. Without being
aware of it, men have in their souls today the feeling of an
inter-denominational Christianity, conveyed by this wonderful
occult script.

Raphael both heralded and established a new impulse in Christianity
although, to begin with he was not understood. Occult investigation
finds that the same Individuality who once worked in Elijah and later
in John the Baptist, lived again on earth in Raphael.
(Note 2)
This helps us
to understand how the forces develop in the same soul from life to
life, and to discern the effects of earlier causes. The Baptist was
beheaded; his work came to light again in the achievements of his
great successor. The new proclamation of the Baptist in the Raphael
life was for long ages forgotten. It came to life again in what
Spiritual Science teaches concerning the Christ-Impulse. What a light
shines in our understanding when we gather up the threads leading
through the single personalities, and in what vivid perspective the
single personality stands there before us!

I said that the paintings of Raphael are like chants of jubilation at
the might of Christianity. Raphael naturally keeps to the accepted
events and facts, but out of his feelings he is able to portray them
with a unique power. As our eyes wander over his paintings we realise
with what majesty and sublimity he portrayed the forces of
Christianity, and ask ourselves: What is it that Raphael did not
paint? He painted no scene on the Mount of Olives, no Crucifixion.
True, he painted a Bearing of the Cross, but it was a very
poor picture and gives the impression of having been done to order.
Neither did he paint any of the scenes leading directly to the
Crucifixion. His creative genius begins to reveal itself again only
when he portrays the figure of the great successor of John  the
figure of Paul in The School of Athens; or when, passing
over the other events in the life of Christ, he paints The
Transfiguration. What Raphael has not painted helps us to
understand that it was alien to him to portray those events on Earth
(not events in the spiritual world) which took place after he was
beheaded in his previous life. We realise why it was that Raphael
painted fewer pictures of these particular events. When we look at the
pictures, we feel that all those which portray events subsequent to
the Beheading of John the Baptist, are not, like the others, born of
earlier remembrances.

As we think of all this, another feeling, too, may arise in us. In a
few more hundred years, what will have become of all the paintings
which have been such great and mighty symbols in mankind? True, for
some time yet the reproductions will be left to us, but not the
originals  for so very long. Anyone who looks today with sorrow
in his heart at Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper realises
what will become of the physical materials used in these pictures. It
dawns upon us, too, that they can only be truly appreciated when,
through Spiritual Science, we understand what it is that Raphael has
painted, for example, in The School of Athens or the
Disputa. What is to be seen today on the walls of the
Vatican in Rome has been ruined by the many restorations. No real idea
of the originals is possible, for they have been so grievously spoilt
by the restorations. What, then, will have happened in another few
centuries? No means of preservation devised by the mind of man will be
able to prevent the materials from deteriorating. In another few
centuries everything will have vanished. The subjects themselves, of
course, will still be known; but the creations of Raphael's own hand
will disappear. And then the thought arises: Is the process of human
evolution such that things continually come into being only to sink,
finally, into non-existence?

Our gaze wanders further and falls upon the youthful figure of a
German poet  Novalis. To begin with, we find in his writings a most
wonderful and unique resurrection of the Christ-Idea, of which
the following may be said. If we steep ourselves in Spiritual Science
and with the means it provides, try to understand the coming of the
Christ-Impulse into the evolution of humanity, and then turn to
Novalis  wherever we look, something seems to spring into life.
Inspirations of the greatest grandeur concerning matters of Spiritual
Science are to be found everywhere. Inspirations that are like lofty
dreams of Science. From Novalis comes something that finds its way
into mankind like seed  seed which will spring to life in times
to come. Here again is a heralding of Christianity! In spite of all
differences, it is again a beginning, just as the work of the Baptist
was a beginning. We are drawn irresistibly to the remarkable figure of
Novalis, feeling that a stream of living Theosophy goes out from him,
inspired by the power of Christianity. We feel that here, too, is a
proclamation of Christianity for the future.

Occult investigation finds that in Elijah, in John the Baptist, in
Raphael, in Novalis, the same Individuality lived and worked. In
Raphael there is a new resurrection of the work of John the Baptist,
and it may indeed be said: Raphael himself is able to ensure that his
work will not perish when his paintings are no longer to be seen on
the walls, just as he was able to prevent other achievements from
passing away. Just as he provided for the revival, in a new form, of
what it had once been his mission to proclaim, so he will always
provide, in incarnations yet to come. Thus does the Individuality bear
through eternity what has once been accomplished.

It may be that concrete examples like these, given as illustrations of
abstract laws and principles, will do more than the external teachings
of Spiritual Science, to render the theosophical conception of human
life as intelligible as those things which confront us in the outside
world. Deep insight may come to us when, in the light of such concrete
examples, we observe processes operating more secretly in the
evolution of the human soul. As spiritual research is still a young
science, men who have studied Raphael hitherto can naturally know
nothing of the power and impulse he bears through the ages. But
because the time has come when the idea of the reincarnation of the
human being is to dawn, even though nothing concrete is known about
it, undefined intuitive feelings may arise here and there. A striking
example of this has come again to my mind during the last fortnight. I
remembered how Herman Grimm, a most gifted writer on the History of
Art and a distinguished student of Raphael, speaks of the painter.
Naturally, when Herman Grimm was writing about Raphael, he knew
nothing of Spiritual Science and studied only the single life of
Raphael. He observed Raphael's fame through the centuries, its decline
and subsequent growth, and discerned how, in his creations, Raphael
lives on through time. And then there dawned upon Herman Grimm the
remarkable thought which he expressed in his work on Raphael (he had
wanted to write a volume, but it remained a mere fragment). He says
there, expressing an entirely instinctive feeling: When we ponder on
the things that will endure in the evolution of mankind, and thus
catch a vista of the future, the thought arises that all these things
will be lived through again! This is an eloquent indication of how the
thought of re-experience rises instinctively, like a
longing, in the souls of men who observe evolution thoughtfully and
sensitively, for the very reason that without such a conception, the
rest has no meaning. This is of infinite significance. And when we
reflect about these things, an idea that is beautiful and true comes
to us of what Spiritual Science will be able to do for the evolution
of humanity, and of the enrichment which human life in all its forms
will receive through knowledge of the laws on Reincarnation and Karma.
But if the life of humanity is to be thus enriched, men will have to
learn to observe the Spiritual with the same exactitude with which
they observe the Physical; they will have to perceive how repetition
in the physical world is a great law of existence, and that recurrence
 as in the return of the soul into the body  is also a law
governing the return of the fruits of the various lives. Such an
experience, however, is always preceded by others  by human
longings and hopes, and instinctive knowledge which has been unfolding
during recent years. When we think of these things, it seems as though
Spiritual Science has been growing and developing without
consciousness on the part of human beings, but that they were already
dreaming of it, instinctively divining its approach. There are some,
however, who have pondered about the spiritual life, and they have
indicated what they felt concerning the rhythmic recurrence of
phenomena and even concerning the return of the human soul.

It is interesting, here, to speak of a case  which I could
multiply a hundredfold  because it is an example of what is
alive in all those who have contemplated the picture presented by
human evolution and in their life of feeling have discerned the
rhythmic recurrence, the rhythmic return of events. I will quote one
example, which shows how this thought has taken root, causing
something to spring to life in the soul. This writer could not have
been a theosophist in the modern sense, for what I am going to refer
to is a poem written in the year 1835.
(Note 3)
The writer could have had no
knowledge of the vista of human evolution one day to be opened up by
Spiritual Science. Yet something rises up in him that is like a dream
of the future of humanity  an instinctive perception of
recurrent phenomena in human existence. I am speaking of the poet
Anastasius Grün, who in the year 1835 published a poem (Schutt) in
which he depicts five recurrences of a certain happening, rhythmic
repetitions of the spiritual message working in humanity. The poem
depicts how on Easter Day, Christ re-visits the Mount of Olives in the
Spirit, in order to look again at the places where He had lived and
suffered. The poem speaks of five returns, four of which lie in the
past, and the fifth in the future. The first occurs in the period
after the destruction of Jerusalem. The second, when Christ
beholds the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders; as He looks down,
Christ sees what is happening in the places He had once known. The
third return falls in the period when Islam was spreading its power
over Jerusalem; the fourth in the period when humanity, split into
countless sects, was quarrelling about the mission of Christ. All this
is vividly and graphically described by Grün. Then there opens out the
vista of a return of Christ on an Easter Day in the far distant
future. Although the picture is dreamlike and Utopian, we cannot fail
to discern  apart from the actual content of the poem  something
of the blessing experienced by the soul when spiritual knowledge,
especially as it has unfolded since the thirteenth century, opens up
glimpses of a future when a spiritual culture will spread peace
instead of wars and strife. Grün sees the blessings of peace in the
culture of times to come and speaks of a future return of Christ to
the Mount of Olives on an Easter Day, describing it as it appeared to
his imagination. Children are playing on Golgotha; they have been
digging in the ground and find a strange thing made of iron, not
knowing at all what it can be; it proves, subsequently, to be a sword.
And in the mood of exultation which comes upon him, Grün says that
there will come a time when the very purpose of such an instrument as
a sword will have been forgotten and the sword will be an object of
amazement to men. Then he says that the iron will be used as a plough
and describes the feeling which the rhythmic return of Christ to the
Mount of Olives quickens in him. What has been forgotten and will
again be revealed, is a Cross of Stone! It is raised again and Grün
says that something happens to the Cross, indicating what part the
Cross will play hereafter. In the following verses he describes what
feelings arise in him when the children unearth a Cross and set it up
for all the world to see  and he speaks, too, of the function
and the power of the Cross in mankind: 

Though yet they knew, or knew it not, full-fraught
With blessing and upreared within their breast
It stands and ceaseless calls, while all around
Its Name lies blazoned upon every path.
For what they knew no longer was  a Cross!
The strife they knew not, nor th'ensanguined Sign;
They saw but victory, and the victor's crown.
'Twas but the Rainbow-Glory filled their soul.
In garden fair they set the Cross of Stone 
Relic of bygone ages, strange, and venerable,
Roses entwine and flowers of every hue
Lay their soft arms about Its Stem.
Thus stands the Cross of Golgotha, resplendent,
Glorious  Its meaning heard to find,
Its form all hidden 'neath a rosy veil!
Men see no more the Cross, for roses there.